Baseball guide

Baseball for beginners: innings, outs and how to read a box score

Updated September 2026 · Innings & Alleys

Baseball looks slow until you know what to watch for. The rules fit on a page, and the scoreboard tells the story of a game in one short line.

The basics

Two teams take turns. In each inning the visiting team bats first (the "top" half), then the home team bats (the "bottom" half).
Three outs end a half-inning. A batter is out on a strikeout (three strikes), a caught fly ball, or when a fielder tags or forces them out on the bases.
A game is nine innings. The team with more runs wins. If it's tied after nine, extra innings are played until one side leads at the end of a full inning.
Scoring means touching all four bases. A batter hits, runs to first, second and third, and scores by reaching home plate. A home run clears the fence and scores everyone on base plus the batter.

Reading a live score

Top 6th means the visiting team is batting in the sixth inning. Bot 9th is the home team's last chance. Many scoreboards also show the count (balls and strikes), the outs, and which bases have runners.

The box score line: R, H, E

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Visitors	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	4	0	7	10	0
Home	0	0	2	0	0	1	1	0	0	4	7	1

Each column is one inning's runs. At the end come R (total runs), H (hits) and E (errors, misplays by fielders). A home team that leads after eight and a half innings doesn't bat in the ninth, so you'll sometimes see an X in that box.

Stats you'll hear

Batting average (AVG): hits divided by at-bats. .300 is excellent.
Home runs (HR) and RBI: homers hit, and runs batted in (runs that scored because of a batter's play).
ERA (earned run average): runs a pitcher allows per nine innings. Lower is better; under 3.00 is very good.
Strikeouts (K): batters a pitcher has struck out.
Save (SV): credit for a relief pitcher who closes out a close win.

The MLB season

Major League Baseball has 30 teams in two leagues, the American and National, each with three divisions. Every team plays 162 games from late March to late September, which is why no single game matters as much as in cricket or basketball. Twelve teams reach the playoffs in October, and the World Series, a best-of-seven between the two league champions, is played in late October or early November.

Japan and Korea

Baseball is a major sport in East Asia. Japan's NPB has 12 teams in two leagues (Central and Pacific) and crowns a champion in the Japan Series. Korea's KBO League has 10 teams and ends with the Korean Series. Both play a bit more than 140 games from spring to autumn. Many stars in both leagues have gone on to MLB. We add NPB and KBO games to the scoreboard by hand, because the international data feed we use doesn't cover them.

What first-pitch time means for you

Most MLB games start in the US evening, which is the next morning in Asia. A 7:10 PM Eastern first pitch is 7:10 AM in Manila and 4:40 AM in India while the US is on daylight time (until early November), and an hour later after that. Our baseball scoreboard converts every start time to your local time.

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